{"id":3800,"date":"2015-08-06T00:18:45","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T00:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=3800"},"modified":"2015-08-06T00:25:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T00:25:44","slug":"yokai-monsters-spook-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=3800","title":{"rendered":"YOKAI MONSTERS: SPOOK WARFARE!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (AKA Big Monster War)-<\/strong> <\/a>1968, Yoshiyuki Kuroda, Japan<\/p>\n

\"1118full-yokai-monsters--spook-warfare-poster\"<\/p>\n

Possibly the coolest thing\u00a0Daiei<\/strong> studios ever did was\u00a0it’s Yokai Monsters<\/strong><\/em> trilogy, three impeccably awesome monster flicks\u00a0which highlighted a group of\u00a0wildly diverse and creative\u00a0Japanese folks spirits, from\u00a0within\u00a0the format of a period costume drama. These films are satisfying, fun, effective, and they feature peerless Showa era art direction, as well as\u00a0Suitomation<\/strong><\/em> work\u00a0which far exceeded the craftsmanship seen in better known Daiei franchises, such as the\u00a0Gamera<\/strong><\/em><\/a> or Daimajin<\/a><\/strong><\/em> films. Seriously, these movies are inexcusably under-appreciated outside of Japan, and if I do one thing in my life which is both effective AND NOT blatantly immoral, let it be that I spread awareness of rad shit to people who don’t care. Yokai Monsters<\/strong><\/em>– if you’re reading this, it’s too late, I have already won.<\/p>\n

“But just what in the hell is a yokai?”<\/strong> You ask, your Caucasian features twisted into a confused, pained mask of fair skinned befuddlement. Well, good friends, don’t be embarrassed,\u00a0it’s not out of line for we non-Japanese folks to have no clue just what in the fuck a Yokai is, but there’s good news: I’m here to help you.<\/p>\n

\"YOKAIMONSTERS-1\"<\/p>\n

You see, ‘Yokai’<\/strong> is, from what I can tell, sort of an umbrella term, under which a general class of Japanese spirits, ghosts, and bogeymen are grouped. They’re similar to the Western concept of a\u00a0ghost in its quasi intangible, immortal nature, but\u00a0yokai\u00a0aren’t necessarily the spirits of deceased human beings.\u00a0There’s\u00a0an incredible amount of\u00a0diversity in the yokai community, one of these dudes appears to be nothing more than a long strip of sentient\u00a0paper which flys around through the air. Another is an umbrella with\u00a0one eye that likes to lick people. It’s kinda just a big, spooky, ghoul grab bag that contains an endless aray of total weirdos, but as freaky as these critters are, they’re also damn neat, and an\u00a0absolute motion picture gold mine. All three of the Yokai<\/em> films feature a wide range of these spirits, and that alone makes them a\u00a0must-see \u00a0for fans of Japanese horror cinema.<\/p>\n

THE PLOT~<\/strong>\u00a0When a\u00a0terrible, Ancient, Babylonian Demon called ‘Daimon’ is\u00a0accidently freed by foolish\u00a0grave robbers,\u00a0it\u00a0flies across the globe and\u00a0settles in Fuedal Japan, for no reason. Daimon, eager to get back into the swing of evil bullshit,\u00a0kills and impersonates a local Lord, and in so doing, evicts Kappa, a water dwelling Yokai which had lived on the Lord’s property, presumably forever. Kappa is pissed, and he goes to tell all the other Yokai that some big, gnarly, foreign spirit is busting up shit in Japan, and he needs their help to make it right. Initially, all the other Apparations call bullshit on Kappa’s story, because he’s sort of like the Dave Chappelle of the Yokai kingdom, but they eventually come around and agree to help him. In the end, all the yokai are gathered for a massive conflict between the indigenous spirits of Japan, and this monstrous intruder, who just can’t play nice.<\/p>\n

\"yokai06\"Also, sometimes the Yokai use profanity, and we all know that’s awesome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0subtext should be pretty clear; this is\u00a0a Nationalist, Japanese, knee-jerk reaction against foriegners, the outside world, and Western Influence.\u00a0It’s also very possible that it’s specifically a\u00a0religious statement, that is to say, Spook Warfare<\/em> could be read as a Shinto-Centric denouncement of Christianity,\u00a0an imported religion which had\u00a0begun to\u00a0gain popularity throughout Japan. Daimon is a Babylonian demon, but\u00a0we may have just swapped one Middle-Eastern\u00a0faith for another, making him a thinly veiled stand-in for Christianity all the same. His behavior and characteristics are also very much in line with the traditional\u00a0European vampire, and at the end of the film,\u00a0he is chased off by figures which are forever associated with\u00a0an indigenous religion of Japan,\u00a0so the argument that this is a big “You’re not welcome” sign pointed right in the face of people who straight up dig Jesus feels pretty sound. At one point, Daimon even goes after the children, and that’s when the Yokai REALLY get pissed.\u00a0This is\u00a0essentially the Yokai<\/em> film equivalent\u00a0of finding out that\u00a0a missionary gave a pocket Bible to your ten year old, so now you’re losing your shit because Richard Dawkins is your god and you don’t want any of that stuff\u00a0in your house.<\/p>\n

That having been said, it’s not really as over the top as it sounds, and\u00a0it’s hardly just\u00a0cause for rounding up the neighbors and\u00a0burning copies of\u00a0Spook Warfare<\/em> in the center of your cul-de-sac.\u00a0This\u00a0is just a little bit\u00a0of Nihonen Xenophobia, and that’s a perfectly natural reaction for a culture to have when it perceives its natural identity to be challenged.\u00a0Cut Japan\u00a0a break on this one,\u00a0and hopefully, they’d do the same for you. You’d be missing out on a great film otherwise.<\/p>\n

Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare<\/em> is great. All three of these\u00a0films really straddle the line between\u00a0monster movie\u00a0and ghost story, they’re fun, imaginative, and feature some of the best costume, set, and prop design ever to come out of the Showa era. I couldn’t recommend them more.<\/p>\n

A<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (AKA Big Monster War)- 1968, Yoshiyuki Kuroda, Japan Possibly the coolest thing\u00a0Daiei studios ever did was\u00a0it’s Yokai Monsters trilogy, three impeccably awesome monster flicks\u00a0which highlighted a group of\u00a0wildly diverse and creative\u00a0Japanese folks spirits, from\u00a0within\u00a0the format of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[813,145,1338,1087,1341,876,244,1350,1349,1339,1340,1337],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-813","tag-a","tag-big-monster-war","tag-daiei","tag-daimaijin","tag-gamera","tag-japan","tag-nihonen-xenophobia","tag-umbrellas-that-lick-people","tag-yokai","tag-yokai-monsters-spook-warfare","tag-yoshiyuki-kuroda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4363,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions\/4363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}